Europe Votes : Slovakia, the projections

If turnout of 13.05% is maintained in this vote, Politico predicts Smer-SD will beat second-placed L’SNS by 53,828 votes. That is just 1.40% of the 3,853,830 expected non-voters.

These results are translated in FT’s analysis in a 3 seat for the S&D Smer-Sd.

Slovakia – The Issues

Slovakia had the lowest turnout of any member state in the 2014 European elections, with just 13 per cent of voters going to the polls.

This time, there is likely to be higher interest as the country is in election mode.

The latest poll by the Institute for Public Affairs, a Slovak think tank, shows unprecedented interest in the May 25 vote, with turnout projected to hit at least 21 per cent, up from 13 per cent five years ago.

Much of the enthusiasm is at the extremes of public opinion.

The European poll falls between Slovakia’s presidential election, won by liberal upstart Zuzana Caputova in March, and a parliamentary poll next year.

Two new pro-EU groups which backed Ms Caputova, Progresivne Slovensko and Spolu (PS+SPOLU), are hoping that her success will give them a boost. At the other end of the spectrum, Marian Kotleba’s extreme right People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS), which recently survived an attempt to ban it, has been trying to use hostility to the EU and immigration to garner support. (FT)

Euronews reports that Slovakia’s far right has been edging upwards in the polls, so it would not come as a great surprise if it ranked second in the European Parliament elections on May 25. Recent polls show them with around 14% of the vote, only 5% behind the ruling social-conservative Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-SD) party.